ESPN Article: UConn's Edsall: Paying college players 'inevitable'

[atom58]

Right. From the ACC public schools (conference rank, national rank, school name, revenues and expenses) there is this from Wikipedia for 2016-17 (the 7 private schools do not report their income and expenses) ...

1	13	Florida State University	$144,514,413	$143,373,261
2	22	University of Louisville	$120,445,303	$118,383,769
3	26	Clemson University	$112,600,964	$111,126,235
4	35	University of North Carolina	$96,551,626	$96,540,823
5	39	University of Virginia	$92,865,175	$100,324,517
6	44	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	$87,427,526	$90,716,423
7	47	North Carolina State University	$83,741,572	$86,924,779
8	51	Georgia Institute of Technology	$81,762,024	$84,852,123

... and the ACC is only the 3rd or 4th P5 in terms of revenue (not directly comparable as some like the Big 10 (14) includes gate receipts and the ACC doesn't). Like an individual, you must try to live within your means, but all of the schools I think do have student athletic fees - probably OK as many students will want to go there, increasing school enrollment b/c of successful athletic teams (game attendance, notoriety, etc.). Ga Tech does have a sizable deficit but they are the 3rd best engineering school in the USA after MIT and Caltech and have special recruiting problems as the only such school with significant athletic teams.

 

[atom58]

One more thing - the more these schools earn, the more they spend, "keeping up with Joneses", and yes, CFB coaches salaries are completely off the charts when much of their success comes from the players and the strength coach - getting a P5 or major G5 head coach job these days is like winning the lottery. Need I mention Charlie Weis to your ND poster? Yes, this situation is utterly ridiculous. Jimi Hendrix ironically once said "it's funny how most people love the dead - once you are dead you are made for life" - replace dead with CFB coach and it is the same.

 

[UConnNick]

True, but it has been more than 20 years since their last national championship, and as you pointed out they have had recent years of incompetence. 4-8 and 5-7 the last two years with a combined conference record of 2-14. But they still get 90,000 to their games and their fans are some of the most loyal in the country. And while not all their fans post on message boards, the split is still 23-1 for football over WCBB.

You're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare the UT men's BB fan message board to their women's, go right ahead. Comparing football to men's and women's BB at UT is pointless.

Tennessee football is the biggest sport on campus. Nothing else is a close second. Of course it out does WBB in popularity, always has, always will. It's nonsense to compare the two. Also, if you haven't noticed, since Pat Summitt was forced to retire for health reasons, fan interest in WBB has to be down, because they haven't been to a Final Four since, and that's their minimum acceptable standard.